Baltic States To Cut Reliance On Russian Gas

Lithuania will start LNG imports in October

Published: 07/17/2014 03:00 PM

Lithuanian’s opening of the Klaipeda liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in October will end Gazprom’s monopoly in several Baltic nations.

Construction is running smoothly on the facility. Hyundai Heavy Industries recently completed the project’s floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) in South Korea. The FSRU has begun its journey toward Lithuania, with a stopover in the Persian Gulf for a load of LNG.

The vessel is expected to arrive in the Lithuanian seaport in late October and the facility is expected to be commissioned in early December. According to Klaipėdos Nafta, the terminal will have a send out capacity of 71 to106 Bcfy (2 to 3 x 109 m3/yr).

The project is expected to open the door for Latvia, Estonia and Poland to diversify their gas supplies away from Russia and gain access to competitively-priced natural gas.

Tomskneft, a Russian oil and gas production company, has begun using drones to detect issues in pipelines to improve the quality of monitoring and reliability and reveal unauthorized access to the pipeline protection zone.